Helaina's Blog

It’s that time of year again…

Chanukah number two in Rwanda! Which means another ridiculous D.I.Y. menorah fashioned by yours truly. (Click here in case you missed last year’s masterpiece.) I unfortunately can’t reuse last year’s bottle cap menorah because our cat, Keza, relieved herself on it and it was beyond salvaging.

This year, I was going for a flower theme and managed to create something relatively aesthetically pleasing with only aluminum foil, toothpicks, and duct tape. Check it out:

About Me

I graduated from Tufts University, where I was an International Relations major and an Empower Fellow of the Institute for Global Leadership. I moved to Rwanda in 2010 as a Princeton-in-Africa Fellow to work with General Rwanda. Afterwards, I worked with Eos Visions, a social enterprise that facilitates educational travel and capacity building. I left Rwanda in 2012 to join the U.S. Foreign Service (diplomatic corps) as a political officer. While I no longer blog on this site, I've left it up as a reference for people looking for information on Rwanda. I monitor the comments sporadically and try to respond, but I apologize for not being able to reply to all in a timely manner. Thank you for your interest in my website and in Rwanda!